New high-res Pluto images show "snakeskin surface"

NASA has released the highest resolution views of Pluto to date, as the agency's New Horizons spacecraft continues its intensive year-long data transfer. The gallery includes, for the first time, data from the spacecraft's infrared spectrometer, which has mapped the distribution of methane ice on the dwarf planet.

Previous treasures from
the data download have provided us with a wealth of stunning imagery
and scientific insights into the nature of Pluto. We have seen vast
icy plains, mountain ranges and even proof of a hydrological cycle at work in the dwarf planet's atmosphere.

The new images add
another page in our exploration of this enigmatic celestial body. One
shot in particular (above) has taken the New Horizons team aback,
features a landscape of aligned ridges that combine to give the
surface a snakeskin-like appearance. It was captured by the spacecraft's
Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC) and contains a view
of the Tartarus Dorsa mountains, highlighted beautifully in the shot
by the terminator line.

Also included in the
new release was an "extended color" view of the dwarf
planet, which enhanced Pluto's natural hues with the infrared channel
of the MVIC to emphasize the myriad colors saturating the surface
of the unusual "not planet."

"Pluto’s surface
colors were enhanced in this view to reveal subtle details in a
rainbow of pale blues, yellows, oranges, and deep reds", states
John Spencer, a GGI deputy lead from Southwest Research Institute
(SwRI), Boulder, Colorado. "Many landforms have their own
distinct colors, telling a wonderfully complex geological and
climatological story that we have only just begun to decode."

Images from the
spacecraft's narrow-angle Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI)
present the most detailed view of Pluto's surface to date. The color-enhanced image shown above contains a section of the Sputnik
Planum basin to the right, as well as mountains and craters in the
more broken region on the left. Taken shortly before New Horizons'
closest approach to the dwarf planet, the image allows viewers to
pick out relatively small features spanning only 270 yards (250 m).

Sputnik Planum, which
has been the focal point of many of the images returned by New
Horizons, is featured once more in the release. Ahigher resolution
image of the plain shows that its apparently smooth surface is in
fact marked with pits and ridges, at odds with the seemingly pristine
image presented from afar. The team have mooted that the terrain may
be the result of sublimation similar to the process taking place on
67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

For the first time, New
Horizons has included data from its infrared spectrometer. Readings
returned from the spectrometer show highly contrasting levels of
methane ice distribution across the surface of Pluto. The ice appears
to have settled heavily in the Sputnik Planum region while almost
completely avoiding other duller regions. NASA scientists are unsure
whether the ice settled as a result of the brightness of the terrain,
or whether the condensation from the ice is itself the reason for the
brightness.

"With these
just-downlinked images and maps, we’ve turned a new page in the
study of Pluto beginning to reveal the planet at high resolution in
both color and composition," Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of
the New Horizons mission. "I wish Pluto’s discoverer Clyde
Tombaugh had lived to see this day."